The Anatomy of Longing: Interview with Figurative Painter Keita Morimoto

t has been said that every great novel is really a story about longing. The writer Susan Sontag once observed in her journal, “My library is an archive of longings.” Might then the same also be true for paintings?

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: You were born and attended university in Osaka, Japan, and this clearly influences not only your color palette ~ the cool hues and muted tones ~ but also the emotional quality of your work: that overarching feeling of melancholy. Can you speak a bit about this? What other aspects of your artistic sensibility do you trace to your Japanese heritage?

Keita Morimoto: I was born in Osaka and grew up there until I was sixteen. However, I went to an art school, Ontario College of Art and Design, here in Toronto. In terms of cool hues and muted tones you mentioned, I definitely am influenced by a number of Japanese cartoons as well as video games that I used to play. They seem to always have a very unique sensibility and depiction of colors.

The 2001 Japanese anime film, Spirited Away, by Hayao Miyazaki

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: Who were your earliest sources of inspiration? Are there artists whose work you closely follow today?

Keita Morimoto: As an adolescent in Japan, I was not informed of any western painting traditions. So all I had seen then was many kinds of Japanese animations. Hayao Miyazaki was my absolute favorite of all animators.

Hayao Miyazaki

Keita Morimoto:

When I came to Canada, I got to learn a lot about western art histories. Since then, I always loved Rembrandt for his spiritual and inventive aspect of painting practice. In my third year of university, I got to actually see paintings by Rembrandt in person. This was the first time for me to experience such a strong emotion that moved me in a way no other image has ever done. The presence of his figures is so real to the point that I get this strange anxiety from looking at them. He’s an artist I’ve followed for the last few years, and his work triggers something in me every time.

Self-portrait at an early age | 1628 | Rembrandt van Riijn

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: What brought you to Toronto? Do you find that Canada supports artists more than perhaps other parts of the world?

Keita Morimoto: I believe that Toronto is a great city for artists. There is a great deal of supporting system and organizations as well as public engagement in art which I did not see much of in Japan. Of course, there are bigger scenes for artists in the United States or Europe due to their longer traditions. However, it’s a very well-connected city and with the recent development of the internet, there are a lot of different ways in which artists could internationally expand themselves as well.

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: I would be highly remiss if I did not ask you about what is probably your most enigmatic piece: The Nightwatchers. Here, we pick up a slightly different energy than what is found in many of your other portraits. While one cannot deny that same palpable feeling of sorrow, the audience does not feel as if the subjects there in the forest are particularly lost. Rather, on these faces there feels almost to be a sliver of humor that has slipped in. As if the gathering is not only purposeful but that there is an inside joke that only the most observant, sensitive, or patient observer will come to understand. Without spoiling the sense of mystery you have so lusciously created, can you share some of the background to this piece, what you hope your audience will take away from participating in this fascinating scene?

Keita Morimoto:

The Nightwatchers was created based on the idea of glorification that has been reinvented throughout painting history. I was particularly interested in the idea of self glorification on the internet today, the fact that we all attempt to portray ourselves in the best way possible.

I also wanted to subtly imply a bit of actual selves by using objects like beer bottles and casual outfits, while representing them in a somewhat glorified fashion.

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: In many of your works there is also a strong sense of longing. A sense that something yearned for has not yet arrived, or perhaps that what has been cherished has since become lost. Were there particular events that haunted you throughout the painting of some of these works?

Keita Morimoto: Interesting that you mention longing.

I did really want my characters to have this expression that they are longing to come out of the picture frame one day, as if this virtual image of self is wanting to become more real than the real self.

Glorified Self I 2014 | oil on panel | Keita Morimoto

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: Does art for you have the power to sustain one’s spirit even during the most discouraging, even darkest of times?

Keita Morimoto: I do personally get a lot of enjoyment out of art, looking as well as creating. The process of painting contains a lot of emotional stages starting from excitement, followed by anxiety and excitement again, finally ending with a sense of accomplishment. It’s definitely one of the most therapeutic things in my life.

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: If there was one color you would absolutely never want to have to paint without, what color would that be?

Keita Morimoto: I love every color. I know it’s not answering the question properly but I really do love the relationships that happen when different colors are put together. But if I had to choose a color I can’t paint without, it would be white.

Keita Morimoto

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: If you had to name the moment when you felt the most totally uninhibited and free?

Keita Morimoto: When I’m painting.

Deanna Elaine Piowaty: Are there questions you are exploring now that might take you perhaps in new directions? Or is your quest to go deeper still into the forest you have already created?

Keita Morimoto: I am actually making a new series of paintings that explore the deeper parts of the forest and nature with figures, and another series that explores the idea of self-glorification. I will be showing the first series in Montreal in October and the other in LA this November.

"My paintings are allegorical, but I expect each viewer will bring their own interpretation to a piece. The question one asks depends on the individual interpretation. If it’s a superficial read of literal abuse or abasement, then that is the subject being addressed within the viewer. If there is a more complex interpretation stemming from one’s life experiences, then the piece becomes personal, and asks questions the viewer is interested in answering."

"I was a little surprised to hear so many people express that they perceive my pieces as being intentionally disturbing. Wanting to explore the workings of the unconscious tends to make people feel uncomfortable. They imagine death...I like to think of insects caught in amber."

"If only I had parented differently, if only I had been a better child, if only I had been more desirable, then the addict would never have chosen their addiction over me. The truth is that addiction is a complicated process that no other person can be responsible for, only the addict. To believe otherwise is at the heart of codependency."
~Andrew Nargolwala, psychotherapist

"A poet looks at the world a little differently from others, and so does a scientist. I am very fortunate to be both. I find beauty in the cosmological consequences of dark matter, as much as I do in the written and spoken word. I appreciate the beauty in Heisenberg's principle as much as Matisse's economy of line. I'm probably one of the few poets in the world who literally dreams about tensor equations."
~Samuel Peralta, physicist and award-winning author of Sonata Vampirica

"No one lives a bloodless existence. Everything that is repressed eventually finds a way out, even if it is only in the deepest of unremembered dreams. Though I’d rather it was with honesty, acceptance, a bold step, forgiveness and joy. Otherwise we tend to get all twisted up. Art, like love, does keep us alive; and, like love, it has the power to return us to our humanity when nothing else can."
~Interview with British poet, essayist, author, John Siddique

"Fantasy by definition is an escape, and it was a way for me to avoid difficult situations and emotions in my adolescence; however, I don’t think of reading as escapism. I think the activities of daily life are more commonly an escape from difficult or strong emotions. It’s in literature and art that one can usually come into more direct contact with those things. That’s why art is so fascinating. Even fantasy books, ironically."

One of the gifts of Aleah Chapin's body-of-work is the idea that true intimacy is achieved first and foremost by revealing oneself honestly. That through vulnerability we are able to deeply connect. One’s imperfections can actually make connection with others deeper, stronger. More real.

Many of the sights and sounds we’re subjected to in our society are harsh and disturbing. Psychologically and spiritually toxic. Scenes of cruelty, vindictiveness, ugliness and pettiness saturate the media and poison the mental atmosphere. I like the fact that I am sending out into the world images, pictures, little visions, that may do a tiny bit to counteract all that and communicate a sense of beauty, gentle humanity, grace, even holiness. It makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile in this sad, sad world.

"This is like a kaleidoscope creating different images," says the artist of his work. "Like sounds flowing through the four windows, creating a stereo panorama, full of excitement and anxiety."
~Leo Bugaev, photographer, Russia